I need some more time on my Venetian vendor for the month, so I’m swapping its episode with the monster you’d usually be getting the first week of September. It’s kind of still to theme, because it’s a version of the utility monster I created eight years ago, but with its abilities shorn down and put inside the shape of an artist’s model as a kind of weak False God. It’s based on “Rose Rose” by Barry Pain.
You’ll notice you’re getting a lot more statted monsters recently on the podcast: I’m not sure why that is but I think it’s a good thing, so I’m going to try and keep it going.
As a reminder, Mythic Europe Magazine issue two is seeking submissions. I’ve two solid ones so far and the promise of another, which leaves me roughly seven slots depending on length. I’d particularly like to say to people who ran games at Grand Tribunal that if you aren’t going to publish them yourself, I’m happy to work them up with you as magazine articles.
If I did an audiobook read of Heirs to Merlin, would people care about it? It’s a pretty heavy commitment. Assuming 10 minutes per page, it’s about 30 hours of work. Since it is statless it’s a doable thing. It does come out of the same bucket of time as other projects, though, so…I’m asking “This or Sanctuary of Ice? or Sicily Attempt 3? or Domdaniel or Republic of Pirates or…”
I’ve never considered an audiobook read of an Ars book. Would it help some people get into the setting more, or digest it better? It’s worth a try, so people know how big an audience there is for that sort of thing.
I’d follow an audiobook read. Especially if you include side notes related to your experiences as an Ars author! 4e book writing process compared to 5e, collaboration on books, anything like that would be awesome.
Out of curiosity - why did you decide stat blocks wouldn't be counted? I’m asking, as someone who thinks Ars Magicka doesn't have enough published stats block.
Two reasons. Jason’s right: one idea of MEM originally was to let me use articles for the podcast. I used Tom Nowell’s from MEM1, for example.
The second is it sucks up wordcount tremendously. A really simple monster, like the demonic chimerae in today’s podcast episode, for example, are 350 words. This is why the demons in RoP:I have their common powers split off, by the way. Otherwise the book would have pages and pages of repetitions of the common powers.
Most of them are creatures I’ve said “Stats eventually” on. A couple so far are brand new: a huge, demonic chimera based on an etching by Desprez, and a tribe of tiny, almost non-magical “wyverns” which are clearly archaeopteryxes and use an exploit in the quality/inferiority rules to stock up on virtues..**
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I’m cheating slightly because I’ve written one ahead by accident: Boneless, a cryptid for Cheshire, was going to be “monster of the month” this week and it’s not strong enough for an episode, but I have a set of stats.